At the Royal College of Art
Mark Champkins / Industrial Design Engineering
The primary school classroom is currently the focus of design innovation as Government education policy seeks to raise standards in teaching and learning. Both the Design Council and the Royal Institute of British Architects have run competitions to design new school furniture and interiors, as part of a wave of fresh thinking on the school environment.
But to what extent do grand architectural visions of the future really reflect the current realities of classroom life, taking into account the views and needs of pupils and teachers?
According to Research Associate Mark Champkins, who worked with MAK Architects to investigate new furniture and equipment for learning environments, "It is not enough to assume that radical new furniture or architecture will automatically raise educational standards. Better-designed schools do not necessarily guarantee better-behaved or more attentive pupils."
"A pleasant and congenial working environment may be conducive to learning in schools, but it remains secondary to the quality and effectiveness of teaching methods." The key, believes Champkins, is to engage the requirements of the teachers more directly in the design process to tackle problems in both new-build and existing classrooms.
His study began with a programme of observations and workshops in five primary school classrooms in the London area - from a top-performing prep school in Wimbledon to a special needs school in Lewisham. Initial findings led Champkins to focus on the issue of loss of concentration by pupils in class, a universal problem in primary schools.
Says Champkins: "The on-the-ground experience of teachers revealed that pupils lose concentration because they are dehydrated, uncomfortable and disenfranchised, not because the physical environment isn't advanced enough in design. This is one area in which teachers could take a lead in generating design solutions."
To demonstrate this approach, Champkins developed a suite of a five conceptual design proposals to enhance concentration. A water bottle doubles as a pencil holder and pencil sharper, encouraging pupils to drink sufficiently in lessons. A school bag doubles as a seat cushion when slung over the chair back, making the chair more comfortable.
A desk-top voting keypad enables pupils too shy to shout out to get their views across in lessons. A light clock tracks the passage of the lesson over the physical fabric of the classroom, enabling pupils to keep track of time and progress. And a write-on display blind folds out across the front of the classroom, creating a shift of emphasis during lessons.
Two of the proposals - the water bottle and the school bag - were prototyped and taken back to the school classroom for user testing, as part of a broader objective to involve teachers in a design dialogue.
According to Ken Mackay, a director of MAK Architects, "This project is about exploring a methodology to bring the language of innovative design and media into the existing primary school classroom, in a way which ensures that teachers' views are given sufficient weight."
The outcomes of the project have been encapsulated in a children's storybook entitled 'Concentrate' so that even the youngest participants in the study will be able to understand its findings.
research partner: MAK Architects